


Two Kinds of Love

by rangerhitomi



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! Zexal
Genre: M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-21
Updated: 2015-02-21
Packaged: 2018-03-14 11:18:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,489
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3408635
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rangerhitomi/pseuds/rangerhitomi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A fill for the fanworkathon: “Durbe/Ryouga/Yuuma, two of the people who love Shark the most being sweet to him even though he feels like he doesn’t deserve either of them."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Two Kinds of Love

Yuma finds Durbe sitting on a park bench, tossing bread crumbs at birds; only, the birds keep getting chased off by squirrels and Yuma’s not sure Durbe cares. (There’s also the possibility that Durbe doesn’t really even know who the bread crumbs are for, just that tossing bread crumbs at passing creatures is something humans  _do_.)  
  
He looks more serious than usual, if that’s possible (Durbe has never smiled as far as Yuma can remember), and he’s so lost in thought that he doesn’t notice Yuma sit on the park bench next to him until Yuma waves in front of his face.

Durbe practically throws the bread on the ground as he jumps and scowls at Yuma. “Don’t do that.”  
  
“Sorry.” Yuma swings his legs a bit and watches Durbe take off his glasses and rub his face. He looks tired now, and sad about something, but when he puts his glasses back on, he’s back to normal. Yuma knows better. “What’s bothering you, Durbe?”  
  
“None of your concern.” Durbe stands, sending squirrels and birds alike scattering, and begins walking off. Yuma follows.  
  
“Is this about Shark?”  
  
Durbe stops mid-step and Yuma bumps into him. “Nasch,” he says finally, and his gaze drops to the ground. “He’s Nasch to me, no matter what he chooses to call himself now.”  
  
“He won’t talk to me,” Yuma says quietly. “He insists he doesn’t deserve to.” It hurts, too. Shark had always been able to talk to him about anything; Yuma had always cared about him no matter what.   
  
“Nasch betrayed you and set his friends to kill you and your friends,” Durbe replies icily, and he finally starts walking again, shoulders stiff, hands clenched. “Can you blame him?”  
  
“But he won’t talk to you either, right?” It’s obvious, the way he is acting, and when Durbe spins around with his hand still clenched, Yuma thinks Durbe might be about to hit him.   
  
Instead, Durbe lets his hands fall to his side and bows his head for a moment. “You’re just a child. You don’t understand everything that Nasch and I have-” He bites his lip but he’s too late and Yuma’s far more astute than people give him credit for.  
  
“You know,” he says quietly, scuffing his foot on the sidewalk, “you’re not the only one who loves him.”  
  
He knows it’s different, the love he has for Shark and the love Durbe has for Nasch. To Yuma, whatever happened between Nasch and Durbe before was something from another life.   
  
But Durbe remembers that life. He’s lived it, and he’s living it all over again.  
  
Durbe’s quiet, lost in thought. When he finally looks up, his expression is softer. “Why won’t he see how much we love him, Yuma?”  
  
“Because,” and Yuma’s sure he’s right, sure this is the reason, “he doesn’t think he deserves anyone’s love.”   
  


* * *

  
  
Rio’s out getting groceries and Ryoga stays in the living room to their apartment with the television on to infomercials. He’s not actually watching it, but he prefers some mindless noise to the silence of his thoughts.   
  
There’s a knock at the door, and it’s not Rio and he’s not expecting anyone, which means it’s probably someone he doesn’t want to see, so he ignores it.  
  
“Nasch,” the person at the door pleads, “please let us in.”  
  
Durbe, then. No one else calls him Nasch anymore. But who’s with him?   
  
“Shark, we can hear the television,” a second voice says, and there’s a more insistent knock now so Ryoga scowls and decides to answer the door and shoo them away, but when he opens the door and sees Yuma and Durbe standing side by side, with matching looks of sorrow on their faces, he begrudgingly lets them in.  
  
“What are you doing here?” he asks, turning his back to them as he makes his way back to the couch, but a hand reaches out and grabs his and in one swift motion, Durbe pulls Ryoga into his arms and presses their lips together.   
  
Ryoga’s surprised at first and a memory from two lifetimes ago floods his head; as he closes his eyes, he’s King Nasch being kissed by his knight during a fleeting moment of privacy, passing in the halls, and he smiles into the kiss because if they’re caught it might raise a scandal in the palace but it’s so… liberating. There’s something exciting about the king’s forbidden moments with the knight of two kingdoms, and he relishes it.   
  
And then the kiss is over and his knight pulls his lips away and touches Nasch with a gauntleted hand-  
  
-no, it’s a soft human hand now, and the chest Nasch touches is not plated with armor, but a cotton scarf.  
  
And Durbe steps back, smiling sorrowfully, and Nasch is about to ask him what’s wrong before two arms slip around his waist.   
  
He’s Ryoga now, and Yuma is embracing him with his head pressed into the crook of Ryoga’s neck. It’s not a memory, but a wish; he had longed for Yuma to hold him like this for longer than he’d care to admit even to himself, and he wraps his arms around Yuma’s shoulders and buries his face in Yuma’s wild hair and tears leak out because it is such an innocent gesture. Durbe kissed him and Yuma held him and he cries because he doesn’t deserve either of them – not Durbe, who dedicated one life to him and died for him in another, and not Yuma, who refused to give up on him regardless of whether he called himself Ryoga Kamishiro or Nasch, the Barian Lord.   
  
Yuma tilts his head back and kisses Ryoga’s cheek and Durbe pulls both of them to his chest and the three of them stand there in Ryoga’s living room, holding one another, until Ryoga’s finally straightened out his thoughts enough to speak.  
  
“Why are you here?”  
  
“We’ve been given another chance,” Durbe murmurs, and he finally relinquishes his hold. Yuma takes Ryoga’s hand and leads them to the couch. “A chance to live like normal humans. We want you to make something of it.”  
  
Ryoga sits next to Yuma, who won’t let go of his hand. He doesn’t resist it. “If it were truly another chance, I would be able to forget how much I hurt the two of you. But I can’t. I remember everything.”  
  
Yuma gives him a little shove with his shoulder. “Don’t think of all the bad stuff, Shark. Everyone makes mistakes, everyone does things they regret.”  
  
“I hurt you,” Ryoga argues. “I betrayed you and Astral and Kaito-”  
  
“And it doesn’t do any good thinking about it now, does it?” Yuma shifts on the couch. The look in his eyes is one of pure determination. It’s the same look from back then, when Yuma had stood between Ryoga and the museum doors and told him that he would never let a friend do something like this. “What you did as King Nasch, or Barian Lord Nasch, or Ryoga Kamishiro… it wasn’t all bad, was it? You did good things.”  
  
Durbe touches his face again and tilts his chin until they’re looking one another in the eyes. “If you had been a bad person, would Sir Durbe have kept coming back? Would Barian Lord Durbe have kept searching for his leader all those years?”  
  
“Would Yuma Tsukumo have kept getting involved with you if he’d thought you weren’t a good person who just needed a friend?” Yuma adds quietly, and Ryoga closes his eyes.  
  
He supposes he knew all along how much they truly did love him. Maybe that’s why he tries so hard to convince himself they deserve better than him.   
  
Yuma’s head is on Ryoga’s shoulder again. “Remember the time your sis got out of the hospital and she told everyone you sleep with a nightlight-”  
  
“Didn’t I tell you not to bring that up?” Ryoga grumbles, but Durbe laughs, and it’s a sound Ryoga hasn’t heard in so long it sounds almost foreign to him.  
  
“Imagine that, the king of the Barians sleeping with a nightlight.” Durbe smiles at him even though Ryoga casts him an indignant frown.   
  
“I strictly forbid you from bringing that up again.”  
  
“Whatever you say, my friend.”  
  
They fall into silence now, but no more words need to be spoken.  
  


* * *

  
  
When Rio comes home with her arms full of groceries, she’s about to tell off her brother for not helping her bring them up three flights of stairs, but she stops when she sees him asleep on the couch while a commercial about a magic cleaning solution buzzed on low volume on the television.  
  
Durbe’s head is resting on Ryoga’s shoulder while Yuma’s head rests on his lap. One of Ryoga’s hands is holding Durbe’s while the other is tangled in Yuma’s hair, as though he fell asleep stroking it.   
  
She smiles at the contentment on her brother’s face, because he finally understands.


End file.
